The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Pius Bigirimana last Friday launched two new books titled; ‘From tears to cheers’ and the ‘Youth Livelihood Model’.
During the launch at Sheraton Hotel in Kampala, Mr Bigirimana decried the deteriorating civil service and vowed to retire after writing down material that many after him will read.
“My next book will be focusing on the civil service, answering what happened to the civil service. I joined as a young man, the selflessness and integrity,” Bigirimana said, adding: “Deterioration for government civil servants will be the subject.”
Bigirimana, who formerly was the PS in the Office of the Prime Minister, said that civil servants must acquire skills and also develop a reading and writing culture.
“When we do not write, someone else will do it for us, let no one else write our story of what we did or how we did it.” He warned.
Bigirimana lauded
The Prime Minister, Dr .Ruhakana Rugunda, who was the Chief Guest at the book launch said Bigirimana is a valuable asset to the government.
“It is rare to find public servants who are authors because they spend most of their time writing volumes and volumes of reports. Pius (Bigirimana) has challenged many of us, and he remains a truly valuable asset to the government.” Rugunda said.
Wilson Mukasa Muruuli, the Minister Gender, Labour and Social Development, who also doubles as Bigirimana’s political supervisor at the ministry, said the books had been written by a man who has been at the centre of what they depict.
“Pius is an epitome of a very good and wonderful civil servant, his books are not memoirs, they are not just a historical account or policy statements, but they touch on history, policy and his experience in his career as a civil servant.”Muruuli said.
The former premier, Prof Apollo Nsibambi was impressed with the topics Bigirimana chose to write about in his different books.
“The topics he has covered are very crucial; for example corruption in one of his books. I want to encourage public servants to write books because information can easily be distorted if you do not write,” Nsibambi said.
Mr Nsibambi also praised Bigirimana for his assiduous attempt to cultivate the culture of writing in the civil service.
The two books launched on Friday bring to four written the number of books written by Bigirimana.
The other two are titled “Corruption: A tale of a wolf in a sheep skin’ and ‘Abundance Mentality’.
The new books
The first book entitled, “From Tears to Cheers,” which also has a foreword by the First Lady, Janet Kataaha Museveni, is a brief analysis of the reconstruction in Northern Uganda and the Karamoja Region between 2007 to 2012. The book documents the conceptual as well as implementation processes for the recovery of Northern Uganda from the socio-economic destructive upheavals of the Lord’s Resistance Army war. The narrative constructs a chronological presentation of the breakout of the war through the various development frameworks targeted at bringing the Acholi-Lango region, Karamoja and Teso regions to par with the rest of the country.
The second book titled ‘Youth Livelihood’ is a model for empowering youth in the developing world. The book outlines steps to undertake when implementing a nationwide fund programme to finance self-empowerment entrepreneurship by youth under the auspices of a national framework by the Government, a donor agency or any other stakeholder.
